FLORA OP MICHIGAN. 25 



It will also be interesting to have a part of a country cemetery planted 

 with all the kinds of native trees that can be found. 



PLANTING A WILD GAKDEN. 



"Few have any conception of the great number of really pretty flowers 

 that may be selected from wild places, and cultivated with success in a 

 garden. As a rule, horticulturists have never attempted a selection from 

 our wild flowers as adapted for garden use. The botanist, as a rule, deals 

 with things in a wild state only, and therefore the subject has never been 

 thought of by him. 



" Some are looking back with regret to the old mixed-border gardens; 

 others are endeavoring to soften the harshness of the bedding system by 

 the introduction of fine-leaved plants, but all are agreed that a great mis- 

 take has been made in destroying all our sweet old border flowers, from 

 tall lilies to dwarf hepaticas, though very few persons indeed have any 

 idea of the numbers of beautiful subjects in this way which we may 

 gather from every northern and temperate clime. 



"What is to be done? Every garden should have a mixed border. 



" To most people a pretty plant in the wild state is more attractive than 

 any garden denizen. It is free, and taking care of itself, it has had to 

 contend with and has overcome weeds which, left to their own sweet will 

 in a garden, would soon leave very small trace of the plants therein; and, 

 moreover, it is usually surrounded by some degree of graceful wild spray 

 the green above, and the moss and brambles and grass around. 



" There can be few more agreeable phases of communion with nature 

 than naturalizing the natives of countries in which we are infinitely more 

 interested than in those of greenhouse or stove plants. 



"It is quite practicable to create aspects of vegetation along our wood 

 and shrubbery walks, and in neglected places, superior to any seen in 

 nature, because we may cull from the place of every northern, temperate 

 and alpine region; whereas in nature comparatively few plants exist wild 

 in a restricted space." Garden and Forest. 



In planting and managing a mixed border of native wild plants, or a 

 wild garden or botanic garden, whichever you choose to call it, there is a 

 great opportunity to acquire knowedge of the habits of plants. Some of 

 these lessons may be a surprise. In a small botanic garden at the College, 

 a considerable portion is river bottom of the Ked Cedar river. Summer 

 freshets have more than once killed spikenard, ginseng, adder's tongue, 

 burdock, dandelion, catnip, motherwort, houstonia, wild lettuce, May- 

 weed, mallow, broad-leaved plantain and many others not usually found in 

 abundance on river bottoms. Why these were killed and not most of the 

 others we cannot tell. 



Some of the asters, goldenrods, hawkweed, great willow-herb, artichokes, 

 lilies, bladder fern, iris, bur-reed, water weed, arrow-head, cat-tail flag, 

 toad-flax, germander, yellow pond-lilies, and others, spread rapidly in 

 every direction, and if not disturbed will soon monopolize all of the 

 unoccupied land. A good many are more modest and spread little, but 

 root deeply as though they had come to stay. Of these, are water-dock, 

 several wild sunflowers, elecampane, rosin-weed, pokeweed, comfrey and 

 horseradish. Many are delicate and make slow progress, perhaps because 

 we do not understand their wants. Such with us have been the beautiful 

 hepaticas, gold-thread, trailing arbutus, wintergreen, cranberry, laurel, 



